Rendering of 74 Wallabout Street courtesy of Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC.

Developer asked the City to rezone manufacturing-zoned block in order to develop a seven-story building and a five-story extension for an adjacent religious school. On September 12, 2012 the City Council approved 74 Wallabout LLC’s proposal to demolish a low-rise warehouse building and build a seven-story mixed-use building at 74 Wallabout Street in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The warehouse sits on the western half of a block bounded by Wallabout Street, and Flushing, Franklin, and Kent Avenues. The Pointe Plaza Hotel (a converted industrial building) and the K-12 Yeshiva Bnos Ahavas Israel occupy the block’s western half. The new building will be 70 feet tall and include 120 rental units, 28,439 sq.ft. of ground floor retail space, and 60 underground parking spaces. 74 Wallabout LLC plans to make the apartments affordable to moderate income households. 74 Wallabout LLC also plans to sell a 5,000-square-foot portion of its property to the yeshiva, and build the school a 17,640-square-foot, five-story rear extension. To develop the project, 74 Wallabout LLC requested that the block be rezoned from M1-2 to R7-1 with a C1-5 commercial overlay.

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Additional 175 blocks of Greenpoint and Williamsburg rezoned. The City Council approved a 175-block rezoning plan for Brooklyn’s Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighborhoods. The newly rezoned area lies east of the City’s large 2005 rezoning initiative. 2 CityLand 67 (June 15, 2005). Unlike the 2005 plan, which concerned redevelopment of the manufacturing-zoned blocks along North Brooklyn’s former industrial waterfront, this new plan seeks to prevent further out-of-character construction along Greenpoint and Williamsburg’s residentially-developed inland blocks.

Originally developed in the 19th and 20th centuries as worker housing, the area has recently seen construction of 200-foot, as-of-right apartment towers along blocks characterized by small, wood-framed, two- and three-story buildings. The Department of City Planning proposed some increased residential density and commercial development, but set height and density limits along streets characterized by two- to four-story residential buildings.

The approved plan replaces the area’s predominantly R6 zoning, which covered 93 percent of the rezoning area. The new contextual zoning districts (R6A, R6B, and R7A) eliminate as-of-right development of large towers without height limits. Planning assigned the R7A zoning district, which allows a slight increase in density, to 44 blocks along the area’s major commercial corridors of Grand Street, McGuinness Boulevard, and Manhattan, Metropolitan, Union, and Bushwick Avenues. The City’s Inclusionary Housing program will now apply to these blocks, allowing developers to increase a project’s floor area in exchange for an agreement to build affordable housing. (more…)

Project approved after concerns over potential adverse effects on small businesses addressed. On February 26, 2009, the City Council approved a special permit application to facilitate construction of The Shops at Gateway, a retail shopping center at the corner of Flatlands and Fountain Avenues in East New York, Brooklyn. The developer, Morgan B. Realty LLC, intends to build three one-story buildings with about 230,000 sq.ft. of retail space for approximately 25 commercial tenants. The development site is zoned M1-1, which limits certain retail uses to 10,000 sq.ft. of floor area. The majority of retail stores will range in size from 2,000 – 5,000 sq.ft., but the developer also intends to construct two or three stores larger than 10,000 sq.ft. The special permit allows for larger retail stores because it removes the floor area limitation on some retail and service uses, including variety, clothing, and department stores.

At Council’s Zoning & Franchises Subcommittee hearing, Morgan’s attorney, Howard Goldman, stated that the project would benefit the community by providing a wider variety of shops and services than is currently available in the area. He also stated that the City Planning Commission found that the larger retail stores would not adversely affect local businesses, and pointed out that the project would create approximately 700 jobs for local residents. Council Member Charles Barron, whose district includes East New York, stated that he thought the project could have been successful providing only small retail space, and expressed concerns about the negative impact the large stores might have on small businesses. Council Member Larry B. Seabrook asked if the developer had set any goals regarding the use of minority contractors. The developer responded that he was willing to work closely with the community and Barron on this issue. Barron asked that the vote be laid over so that he could meet with the developer for further discussions. (more…)

Twelve-story facility will house 263 former homeless and provide on-site supportive services. On June 29, 2006, HPD and Common Ground, a not-for-profit that provides housing services for the homeless, obtained City Council approval for a 12-story housing facility to be located on East Houston at Pitt Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The site contains the Milliken Clubhouse building, a former Boys’ Club of New York location, which has sat vacant since 2003.

Common Ground currently operates four housing facilities for the formerly homeless in Manhattan and has a fifth facility under construction in downtown Brooklyn. Its Times Square Hotel facility at West 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue houses 652 people and is the largest homeless housing facility in the country. All its facilities provide onsite social services, job training, and medical facilities, and target persons considered by Common Ground to be most at risk for homelessness, like children leaving foster care and substance abusers.

At the East Houston site, Common Ground proposed to demolish the Milliken Clubhouse and construct a 99,158-square-foot project for 263 persons, requiring a special permit to exceed the permitted floor area by 46,526 sq.ft. The 12- story facility will have 45 suites for formerly homeless youth and former foster care children on the second and third floors, and 207 individual rooms for adults with AIDS, mental illness and substance abuse problems on the fourth through twelfth stories. It will also house onsite job training, educational programs and physical and mental health medical facilities. (more…)

Each school to accommodate over 1,600 students. On May 25, 2005, the City Council approved the New York City School Construction Authority’s proposals for the construction of two new schools: a high school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and an intermediate and high school facility in Heartland Village, Staten Island. Student occupancy of both schools is expected to begin in September of 2008.

Sunset Park High School will be located at 932 4th Avenue and 156 34th Street on the block bounded by 34th Street to the north, 4th Avenue to the east, 35th Street to the south and 3rd Avenue to the west, and will adjoin the John D’Emic Park. The 48,000-square-foot site currently contains one and two-story buildings used as industrial warehouses. These buildings will be acquired by the School Construction Authority and replaced with a five-story, 191,000-square-foot building that will serve about 1,640 students. (more…)